His shirt has ridden up to reveal the landscape of his abdomen. Slowly I trace the V of muscles arcing from his hips, the ladder-like planes of his abs, the circle of his navel. As I edge my fingertips into the drawstring waistband of his pants, he clamps his hand around my wrist like a manacle.
Before my protest even forms, he’s levering himself off the sofa and away from me. He turns his back, his spine like a rod of metal.
Silence falls, leaden and thick. I sit up slowly. His withdrawal is cold water spilling over my warmth.
“I’ll arrange to have your car brought back to Grenville this afternoon.” His voice is rough. “I need to take you home.”
“It’s Saturday, and no one is going to miss me.” I stand up slowly. “Look, please don’t be mad at me. I’m honestly not trying to coerce you.”
With a low laugh, he shakes his head, bringing his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “You’re not capable of coercion, Nell. I’m not mad at you.”
“But you’re upset.”
“I’m mad at myself.” He turns to face me, his eyes impenetrable and black. “I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t.” My throat tightening, I hold up my hands. “Don’t say you shouldn’t have touched me. I wanted you to so badly. I loved every minute of what you did. And if you tell me you regret it, you’ll spoil something that actually…opened me up inside. Please don’t do that.”
He shuts his eyes briefly before a heavy sigh rattles from his chest. He takes a step toward me, then swerves abruptly into the kitchen, putting the counter between us.
“I don’t want you to think this is the way it should be for you.” He drags a hand through his hair. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth. I’ve done too much, seen more than anyone should. I’ve been in hell. It will always be the darkest, most sordid part of me. You don’t need any of that, any of me. I’m a fucked-up old pervert who should be arrested just for the way I think about you.”
“Don’t say that.” I blink against a sudden sting of tears. “Please. Every time you talk about yourself like that or tell me I shouldn’t want you, you’re belittling my feelings. As if my wanting you is shameful and wrong, when honestly it’s one of the few things that has ever felt right. I’d never be attracted to a fucked-up pervert. But I am attracted to an astonishingly strong, brave man who tells people’s stories when they can’t speak for themselves. A man driven by the need to expose injustice and the horrors of war. A man who runs toward conflict instead of away. A man who survived the most brutal of prisons, who’s lived through torture and seen the worst side of humanity, and who can still see the beauty of life. That’s the man I want so badly. That’s who you are.”
He stares at me for an instant, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle pulses in his cheek.
“Nell.” He says my name on a serrated breath, like torn paper. “Whatever you think about me, I’m a fucking mess. You need to be with someone good, who will treat you well, someone your own age.”
“Stop it.” I cross the room to where he’s standing. “I’ve lived most of my life with other people telling me what they think I need. Don’t you be one of them. I know what I need and what I want. I told you as much last night.”
“I still should have enough control to resist you, but I don’t.” He flexes his hands at his sides. “You weaken me with one look. When I touch you, I’m done. I have nothing left. No control. No decency. No honor.”
“Don’t.” I give him a hard poke in the chest. “I told you not to say things like that. It hurts me.”
He groans, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t want to hurt you. Ever. But I can’t look at you without wanting you, and that’s so damned wro…not right.”
“Seriously. Stop. Or I’m going to cry.”
“I know you don’t want me to fight this, but I have no choice.” Lines of stress bracket his mouth. “Obviously I’m doing a shitty job of it. I’m sorry, Nell. For your entire life, I’ve only wanted the best for you. And I’m nowhere close to being the best.”
I wipe my eyes and step away from him.
No matter what I say, he will let the weight of guilt crush him. And then he’ll become a man I no longer recognize, a man who will never acknowledge his own bravery, his goodness, his heroic heart.
I can’t live with that. God knows I don’t want him to either.
“You are…” I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “You are the best. The best of men. It kills me that you can’t see that. Or that what’s between us is preventing you from seeing it.”
A shadow darkens his eyes. “I don’t trust myself with you.”
“I trust you with me.”
He almost flinches, as if the statement physically hurts. “Nell, what do you think can even happen here? Not an affair or a relationship. What I did last night was—”
“No.” The denial snaps out of me, sharp and cold. “What you did last night was exactly what I wanted. And contrary to what you think, I’m not a lovesick teenager who’s expecting to ride off into the sunset with you. I’m not stupid. I know we could never have anything…r-real.”
My voice stumbles over the last word because, in truth, only when I’m with him does the world seem real.
“Then what?” He spreads his hands out, his features tight with frustration. “I’ve already crossed way too many lines. If I cross another one…or, hell, even if I don’t, I might as well let my goddamned captors lock me up again. At least then I’ll be under fucking control.”
The biting comment hits me like a blow. A surge of pain almost makes me nauseous.
We’re both breathing hard. The air between us is tense and thick. We’re stumbling in a maze filled with twists, turns, and dead ends.
If there’s an exit, I have no idea where it is. I don’t even know which direction to go.
Averting his gaze, Darius crosses to an annex beside the kitchen. He returns with my dry clothes and sets them on the counter.
“Go change.” He starts toward the bedroom. “There’s a restaurant about ten miles down the road. We’ll stop and get you something to eat. We should be back in Grenville before eleven.”
What happens then? I swallow the question back down because I don’t want to know the answer.
The morning sun is sharp and bright. The rainstorm has washed the world clean. Cars travel alongside us on the highway. The hills undulate in the distance like a giant sleeping underneath a blanket of forest-green and gold.
When we sit down in a booth at the Fisherman’s Hook, I realize I’m starving. I devour a massive plate of scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and pancakes loaded with butter and maple syrup.
Darius has black coffee and silently watches me eat. He’s a fortress again, barricaded and locked up tight. But now I know what he’s like when his defenses are down. When I break through.
Is this fair? For all his talk about being the one in a position of power, he’s not like other men. What he endured changed him irrevocably. His psychic scar tissue is fathoms deeper and thicker than mine. Than anyone’s. Who am I to poke at it, to try and peel it away?